Environment and weather

Hearing of flooding in south Asia, hurricanes in Puerto Rico and the United States, and earthquakes in Mexico, it seems a little whiney to be writing about our weather here.

Rain, rain, rain – as well as heat. But mostly rain.

Water flowing over a concrete bridge, 8 October 2017

October to February is the part of the rainy season that is also quite cool. But we’ve been having heavy rains for weeks in September – more than I remember in any previous year. In many places the earth is almost completely saturated.

The results can be disastrous.

One section of the major international highway that goes between the Caribbean port of Puerto Cortez and El Salvador and Guatemala collapsed and cut off traffic for weeks. The breach in the road is between Santa Rosa de Copán and Cucyagua in a stretch of the highway that was recently repaired. The authorities are saying it is on a geological fault, which is probably partly true because up to sixty nearby houses were severely damaged and hundred displaced. But there also was a 4.3 earthquake not very far from there that may have exaggerated the fault line.

But the rains also have wreaked havoc here in our area. It is not yet as bad as it was in June and July but it could get significantly problematic.

Landslides abound. Even the retention wall below my house fell after a fierce rainfall. It’s now being rebuilt. But this is not merely a question of saturated soil. The former neighbor had excavated soil that had been keeping the wall up. This weakened the wall.

Sunday, October 1, I went to one of the most remote villages, San Marcos Las Pavas, for a Celebration of the Word with Communion. As I approached the church, I was stopped by a landslide that had left only a small muddy path for people to cross. Needless to say, I turned the car around and got out and walked through the mud and water to the church.

The people told me that there was another landslide the other side of the church. More than half of a road had fallen into the ravine below. 

This Sunday I went back with two of the missionaries who are visiting the villages of the parish this week. Part of the path had been cleared from the landslide, but I didn’t trust crossing it with a car. (I was told that the clearing was done by members of the community.)

 I then went to see the other landslide – which had gotten significantly worse.

There are also some very slippery patches of the roads. Last week I approached a curve (where I had slid into the side of the road in August) and saw a bus stuck on the side of the road. I passed with trepidation, but made it.

We also have an increases of deep holes and ditches running across the road in various places but most often down the middle or side of the road. It becomes very tricky negotiating these, mostly trying to avoid them, since they can be between six and twelve inches deep.

I also am seeing several places where the road is sinking. In one place there were deep spots a few months ago, it looks as if the earth will fall again.

 Why?

Climate change can be a major cause. People here say they haven’t seen such damage from rain since Hurricane Mitch in 1998. I haven’t seen such rain in the ten years I’ve been here.

But there is the problem of neglect.

In some places there has not been up-keep of the roads for a long time. So in a few places almost nothing has been done, even after previous damage. In the curve where the bus slid over to the side of the road, this has been a problem recently because some repair work was done and, in my estimation, not enough gravel was put down.

In this one municipality, people have gone out and done some minor repairs, mostly filling in deep holes with earth. But the municipal government seems to have done little.

In another municipality, the situation has been significantly better since they have put gravel on many roads which helps prevent slippery roads, since a lot of the earth here is clay.

In addition, when there’s a landslide, it is often left at the side of the road, waiting for the municipality to do something. In one case, nothing was done for about a month and so large fissures may driving on the road below the landslide very tricky. But in this case, some people took up shovels and picks and removed the landslide and filled part of the fissures.

In addition, these are narrow roads that often have a lot of traffic. There are busses that pass several times a day, but during the year there are often many truck carrying coffee.

Also, some land owners plant coffee and make roads into their fields without any concern for environmental effects or for possible landslides. There is at least one place where there have been more than four landslides this year. Luckily they have not blocked the whole road.

As for environmental laws or regulations for building, these are virtually non-existent. People build wherever they can. I can understand this when people in poverty build wherever they can. There is often no land available to buy and the large landowners keep grabbing more land and raising prices. But in at least one place a coffee purchasing warehouse and drying area was built where there have been serious problems of flooding of the highway. I doubt if anyone analyzed the environmental effects of the building.

I have not even begun to try to analyze the effect of large scale burning of the fields and the ensuing deforestation. This is most often the practice of large landowners, sometimes looking for a cheap way to clear an area so that they can plant coffee. 

Now one of these landowners did burn a significant area a few years ago, but he has planted hundreds of madreado trees in his fields; this will positively help the environment. But in other places I have seen scorched earth with trees deliberately cut down.

There is much more to write about, but I’ll wait and see how the rains in these next four months affects our lives here.

Dulce Nombre Parish Stations of the Cross 2017

The Friday before Holy Week is often celebrated as the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the Sorrowful Mother – Mater Dolorosa, La Madre Dolorosa. Here in the diocese of Santa Rosa we have been celebrating with special diocesan-wide – or more recently parish-wide – Stations of the Cross.

The Stations of the Cross is a devotion that arose about the 13^th century to follow Jesus on the Way of the Cross from his condemnation before Pilate to his burial. Many pilgrims have walked the Way of the Cross, the Via Dolorosa – the Way of Sorrows - in the streets of Jerusalem (as I did in 2004). But when pilgrimages to the Holy Land were not possible, the devotion spread throughout Christian Europe. It was promoted especially in the eighteenth century by an Italian Franciscan friar, Saint Leonard of Port Maurice.

This is the fourth year we’ve celebrated a parish-wide stations of the cross in the parish of Dulce Nombre de María, always with one eye on the steps of Christ to the Cross and the other on the lives of the people in our parish. The texts, in Spanish, can be found here. One year we used texts from Monseñor Oscar Romero; last year we used many quotes from Pope Francis, framing the Stations in terms of the Year of Mercy.

This year we prayed the stations a little more generally, though always in light of our times.

We always carry the image of El Nazareno, Jesus carrying his cross – carried by four men. 

This year Padre German asked people to bring some trees to plant and these were carried at the front of the procession, in the form of a cross, to recall the problems of the environment which we and many in the world are experiencing.

As we passed through the streets of Dulce Nombre, we stopped at fourteen stations where altars were prepared. 

The stations and their themes were:

1. Jesus is condemned to death: in a corrupt judicial system, full of impunity and false accusations
2. Jesus carries his cross:  of poverty and injustice
3. Jesus falls the first time: for the weight of the destruction of mother earth
4. Jesus meets his mother, the mother of mercy who encounters her suffering children
5. Simon helps Jesus to carry the cross: we need people who help those burdened by the crosses of life.
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus: which we encounter in the faces of the ill, the elderly, and the imprisoned.
7. Jesus falls a second time: under the burden of work that demeans people
8. Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem: women and children suffering violence and abuse and human trafficking
9. Jesus falls for the third time: under the weight of violence and drugs
10. Jesus is stripped of his garments: without respect for the human body
11. Jesus is nailed to the cross: by racism, classism, and arrogance
12. Jesus dies on the Cross
13. Jesus is taken down from the cross and laid in the arms of Mary, as many women encounter their children and spouses killed by violence, by lack of medical attention, in accidents, or by suicide.
14. Jesus is buried: as many try to keep Jesus hidden, buried.

As we passed through town, Padre German noted in a few places the significance of where we were.

In the sixth station, according to a legend, Veronica wipes the face of Jesus where we recalled the face of Christ in the sick, the elderly, and the imprisoned. We prayed this station before the house of an elderly man who has been ill for several years and is now confined to this home. We were there praying as he, inside his house, also prayed.

At the next station, we stopped in front of the house of a family who had lost their son to cancer a few years ago.

We prayed the tenth station by a school, recalling how the parents of some children and even some children suffer from addictions to drugs, alcohol, pornography.

A local school teacher had prepared the ninth station with a group of students:  Jesus consoles the women of Jerusalem.

What struck me is the sign that one girl held:

We women mourn: infidelity, slavery, abandonment, violence, misunderstanding, deceit, lack of love, hatred.

At the thirteenth station we recalled Jesus in the arms of Mary – and all those who have died in the past year. One sector listed the names of all they knew on a cross.

We invited others to come forward and say the names of those who had died. A few folks came forward and mentioned the wife and son of a delegate who had died separately this past month. I mentioned four of the violent deaths where I have prayed this year as well as the death on a 31 year old delegate of the Word – from pneumonia! – as well as the death of a 23 year old woman who left behind a husband and a ten month old.

We always have a station where people can recall those who have died. This year, I placed this recalling of the dead in the station where Mary mourns the death of her son – lying on her lap after being taken down from the Cross.

This was not your traditional Way of the Cross – though there were many traditional elements: prayers, hymns, scripture readings, walking through the streets. For us, it is important to connect the lives of the people with their faith in very concrete ways.

The Stations closed with Mass, with the trees placed in front of the altar. Many stayed for Mass and received the Bread of Life in the Eucharist.

A fitting way to begin the celebrations of Holy Week.